The opening session of athletics at the World University Games saw Jenny Nesbitt (David Walker, University of Bath) and Louise Small (Mick Woods, St Mary’s University) claim fifth and tenth in the 10,000m final, while Adelle Tracey’s (Craig Window, St Mary’s University) victory in the opening round of the women’s 800m led a string of safe passages for the Great Britain and Northern Ireland delegation in difficult conditions out in Taipei, Taiwan.

With the race delayed by an hour due to a torrential downpour in the capital, Nesbitt and Small took to the start line for the 10,000m, with Japan’s Yuki Munehisa opting to lead out from the gun; something she would go on to do for over 9000m over the race.

With the Japanese representative eventually swallowed up to be pushed out of medal contention, Nesbitt’s finishing time of 34:01.34 saw her move into a commendable fifth on just her sixth ever outing over the distance, while Small’s 35:03.93 was enough for tenth, a clear seven seconds ahead those behind her.

Elsewhere, competing in the fourth and final heat of round one, two lap specialist Tracey ran a controlled race to book her spot in tomorrow’s semi-finals. Leading the field through 400m in 1:02.62, the world championships semi-finalist pushed on for victory in a modest 2:05.78.

Also in middle-distance action and running over 1500m, Jonathan Davies (Rob McKim, University of Birmingham) coped with the sticky conditions to come home in 3:43.95 for the the third and final automatic qualifying spot, with 12 athletes securing passage to the final, set to be held on Friday at 18:50 local time.

First to take to the field of play for the Great Britain & Northern Ireland delegation, Samuel Osewa (coach: Leon Baptise, Loughborough College) took to the track for round one of the men’s 100m. With the first three in each securing qualification, Osewa’s posting of 10.49 (-0.9) in the last of ten heats was good for for the third and automatic qualification through to round two later in the day. In the penultimate heat of round two he would improve his time by one hundredth, clocking 10.48 (0.0) for fourth (q) ahead of tomorrow’s semi-final.

In the women’s version of the discipline, times of 11.48 (+1.7) and 11.52 (-0.3) were good enough to see Corinne Humphreys (Darren Braithwaite, University of East London) through round one and two respectively, with finishes of second and third

It took just two jumps for Allan Smith (Bryan Roy, Edinburgh College University) to progress to the final of the men’s high jump, as first time clearances at both 2.10m and 2.15m were enough for him to accompany eleven competitors into the final this coming Friday.

The men’s triple jump qualifying pools saw Samuel Trigg (Daniel Hooker, University of New Mexico) also able to look forward to a final on Friday thanks to a third round best of 15.61 (0.9), with his performance securing the twelfth and final qualifying spot from the two athlete pools.

Athletics action from the World University Games resumes tomorrow – the timetable for the Games can be found here.

The action is be available to watch live here – for reference, Taiwan is +8 GMT.